


Don't Know How To Play It Cool

by thecryoftheseagulls



Series: Permutations [4]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Developing Relationship, Dubcon Kissing, Episode Related, Episode: s01e16 Falling, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, I maintain that Winn and Siobhan's whole...thing...was Dubious At Best, M/M, featuring Siobhan, they're in love harold
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-13
Updated: 2018-04-13
Packaged: 2019-04-21 20:40:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14293011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecryoftheseagulls/pseuds/thecryoftheseagulls
Summary: Scenes bookending the beginning and end of Season 1, Episode 16: Falling. Winn and James clarify their relationship, and then deal with the aftermath of Kara on red!K."Boyfriends, huh?" James says, smiling, and Winn's brain shorts out at the way it makes James's eyes go all soft and warm."Uhh..." Winn says."I like it," James says.(The title is from the James Bay songWild Love.)





	1. boyfriends

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GeekyandKillingIt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GeekyandKillingIt/gifts).



Monday morning, Winn is still flying high from the way he and James had kissed and talked and made out, for hours, like horny teenagers. They’ve texted back and forth for most of the weekend, James starting it when he’d gone home to find Lucy already packed. And now it's Monday, and Winn is stupidly excited just to see James again, even though he’s just seen him, even though they see each other like every day and this shouldn't be really any different than any other tedious Monday, but it _is_.

Siobhan greets him with this like weird purr to the way she says good morning, but Winn barely notices because he's trying to figure out how he can get away with going down to James’ office, and how soon. He goes into the supply closet to grab some paper for the copy machine, wondering to himself if Lucy has already cleaned out her office and told Ms. Grant that she was quitting. Did she go in to say goodbye to James, or did she just cold turkey it?

The lock clicks behind him. Suddenly there are hands with very long, very manicured nails on his shoulders, turning him around, and he has about half a second to breathe before he has an armful of Siobhan, and her lips are plastered against his. It's all very abrupt.

Siobhan kisses with a single-mindedness that simultaneously turns him on and makes him genuinely fear for his life, as if she might bite his lips off if he fails to please her with the way he kisses back, and something about the way she catches his bottom lip and drags it slowly between her teeth makes him half expect to find actual fangs sinking into his skin and the taste of copper on his tongue.

His back hits the shelves behind him and he thinks, distantly, that that's really going to bruise, before he manages to bring his flailing arms up between the two of them and push Siobhan back.

“Jesus, Siobhan, what the actual hell,” he says, running his tongue over the inside of his lip with an irrational need to make sure he's not bleeding.

"Hi stranger,” she says, smiling at him coyly.

“We can’t keep meeting like this!” Winn squeaks, holding his ream of printer paper up like a shield between them and attempting to dodge around her and get out.

Siobhan catches him with one hand in the collar of his jacket.

“Where are you going?” she asks, spinning him back around to face her and batting her eyes slowly at him. “Don’t you want to…fool around a little?”

Winn backs up till he connects with the door, and feels around behind him for the doorknob. It's fortunately one of those locks that come unlocked if you just turn the knob.

“Okay, see,” Winn sputters, trying to buy himself some time. “I think we got off on the wrong foot somewhere, Siobhan, because while you are a very attractive person, and I am very flattered by your interest in me, I am really not interested in any kind of romantic, uh, relationship, with you.”

“Who said anything about romance?” Siobhan asks, boxing him in with her hands on the door around his head.

“Or sexual! Definitely not interested in a sexual relationship with you either! I did not mean to give you that impression, which, honestly, my bad, although to be fair you didn’t exactly give me any time to object to the kissing in the elevator the other day. Not that it wasn’t nice! Because it was! I just don’t want a repeat, thanks.”

The doorknob finally clicks open behind him and Winn stumbles backwards, but Siobhan keeps coming towards him.

Winn panics.

“Because, uh, you see, I have a boyfriend!” he shouts. “So, uh, bye?”

He runs.

*******

"Craap crap crap crap," Winn mutters, yanking open the glass door labeled ART DEPARTMENT and slipping inside. He scuttles over behind James's desk and hunkers against the wall, attempting to be as invisble as possible - a superhuman feat, when the walls are made of _glass_.

"Uh...Winn?" James stares at him from where he sits in the fancy white chair behind his desk, looking bemused. "You okay there?"

"Oh my god, James," Winn whines. He might be hyperventilating. Just a bit.

"Hey, hey," James soothes, standing. He's beginning to look actually Concerned now, furrowing his brow as he steps into Winn's space. He looks over his shoulder, like he's checking to make sure they're alone, and then reaches out, tentative, to cup Winn's cheek. "What's wrong?"

The fingers against Winn's skin are warm and dry and steadying, and Winn breathes in, sharp, through his nose at the touch, because this is new and unknown and they're at _work_ , where anyone could see, where Kara could get nosy and look through the walls at any time and _see them_. And, god, anyone could have heard what Winn just said, the word could be anywhere in the building by now, everyone probably knows, what is he _doing_?

"Baby, what is it?" James asks and Winn _dies_ , feels his soul leaving his body, ascends to a higher plane of existence, because, fuuuuuck.

"Ha, I uh, you see," Winn stutters. "I almost got, uh, mauled by Siobhan in a, a supply closet?"

James's eyes narrow.

"I was just grabbing some paper!" Winn says quickly. "There wasn't any talking, only...grabbing, and then she locked the closet door behind me - _so_ obviously a trap! - and oh my god, James, it was so bad." Winn shudders.

"You've got some..." James is frowning now. He reaches over to his desk without taking his hand off Winn's face and plucks a Kleenex from a box, then dabs lightly at the corner of Winn's lips.

"Jesus, thank you," Winn says, trying to remember how to breathe properly with James's hands on him - at work - and the memory of Siobhan jumping into his arms to have her way with him. Obviously he had not made it very clear that the Incident in the elevator was neither okay nor something he wanted to repeat, because Winn had come to work this morning on a high after the weekend, _with James_ and been extremely unprepared for the amorous advances of his coworker. Er, his other coworker.

"Are you okay?" James asks again, very seriously this time, like there might be Consequences if Winn is not.

"Uh, yeah, I'm okay," Winn says, wrapping his fingers around James's wrist tightly. He cringes. "But uh...I kind of...maybe...." He gulps. "SaidthatIhadaboyfriend to get her to stop?"

This, paradoxically, does not seem to freak James out in the manner in which it is _definitely_ freaking Winn out. It's not that he's closeted at work, per se, more that his bisexuality hasn't really come up before when he's been, well, in love with Kara for two years. And everyone knows James and Kara have a Thing, so probably everyone else thinks James is straight too, like Winn had until a few days ago, and anyways it's not like he'd _announced_ that the person he was seeing is James, but then he did run immediately into James's office to hide, so yeah, maybe it's kind of obvious?

"Boyfriends, huh?" James says, smiling, and Winn's brain shorts out at the way it makes James's eyes go all soft and warm.

"Uhh..." Winn says.

"I like it," James says.

"Uhh..." Winn says again, still stuck on the smile.

James, the jerk, laughs at him. He pecks Winn on the lips and lets him go, sitting back down at his desk, as if this conversation is all very fine and normal and not at all warranting of any further panic.

Winn swallows.

"You're...really okay with that?" Winn asks, moving after him to perch on the side of the desk. "Even though Lucy just broke up with you? And, like, Kara?" He gestures expansively to indicate all the complexities contained within Kara's name.

"I told you that I like you, Winn," James shrugs. He picks up a pen and taps it against his lips as he looks up at Winn. "I have for a while. So, if you're interested..." his voice trails off meaningfully.

"I am! Interested. Oh god, I am very interested. Obviously. I just," Winn gives James a skeptical look. "Are you sure?"

"I'm sure," James says.

"Oh. Okay, then." Winn looks at James expectantly, deciding to give the man a couple of minutes to come to his senses about this whole thing, because in what universe does anyone, let alone James Olsen, look at Winn Schott Jr. and think 'ya know what, I think I'll take that one over friggin Supergirl'?

James meets his gaze steadily, brows lifting.

Winn turns his chin sideways and peers suspiciously at James.

"...no take-backsies?"

"God, Winn," James says, mouth screwing up like he's in pain, even as he looks maybe a tiny bit amused. "I wouldn't mess with you like that, okay? I'm serious."

"Okaayy..." Winn says. He hops off the desk. "Uh...lunch later," he tries what he hopes is a coy smile, adding, "boyfriend?"

"I'll see you at 1:00," James promises.

Winn manages not to smack himself in the face with the door on his way out, so all in all, probably a win.


	2. aftermath

They're at James's apartment, this time, when the call comes in from Alex that the DEO has managed to subdue and cure Supergirl.

"She's gonna be okay," Alex says, on speaker. She sounds like she's been crying. "Um, eventually, but it's going to take some time, you know?"

"Yeah," James says, quiet. He pushes at his shoulder, wincing. He's been doing that all day.

"Thanks, Alex," Winn says. "Let us know if there's anything we can do?"

"Will do," she says.

James stares dully at his phone as Alex ends the call, and Winn waits for a few moments, gives him the chance to say something, to react, but nothing. The TV continues to play footage of Supergirl fighting DEO soldiers on the streets of National City in the background. Winn reaches over, picks up the remote, switches it off completely.

"James?" Winn asks. 

James looks up, slowly.

"What happened to your shoulder?"

"It's nothing," James says, shaking his head quickly. Winn gives him his patented Cut The Bullshit look, and James folds quickly. There are shadows under his eyes.

"Kara..." James says, "kind of, grabbed me? A few times, while we were dancing last night. I don't think she was paying attention to her strength."

"She hurt you?" Winn says, shocked all over again. He shouldn't be, not after Supergirl threw Cat off a building, not after she came so close to killing Alex tonight. "Let me see."

"Winn..." James says.

"Please, James," Winn says, and James sighs, but he takes off his shirt.

There are two blue-black bruises in the perfect shape of Kara's hand on James's left arm, one near his wrist and the other further up on his forearm. His shoulder, too, is bruised, more purple-colored there, but still painful looking. Winn inhales, looking up at James's face in consternation.

"Jesus," Winn says. James shrugs, and then winces when the movement pulls at his shoulder. "Have you iced that?" Winn asks, already getting up to move in James's kitchen before James can respond.

"Not today," James calls after him, and Winn huffs. He rummages around the freezer until he's found an ice pack, grabs a towel off the stove, brings them both back to James.

"Here."

James takes the towel-wrapped ice with a grunt of thanks and presses it to his shoulder with his right hand. Winn watches him anxiously.

"You know, she...started talking about Lucy as soon as she had me out on the dance floor," James says, staring down at his lap. "Saying how she finally had everything she wanted now that Lucy was gone, like she was trying to tell me she had feelings for me, but like, insulting Lucy to do it? It was weird, I've never heard that kind of anger coming from Kara, and it wasn't even that bad, you know? But it's Kara, so when she says anything so _meanly_ , it sticks out."

"Yeah, like that thing with Siobhan? Getting her fired? I mean, she should have known better than to try and backstab Cat that way, but the way Kara ratted her out so Cat was like, guaranteed to ruin Siobhan's career, it was vicious," Winn says.

"I just..." James sits up sharply and hisses in pain, slumping back again.

"Hey, let me, okay?" Winn slides down the couch and turns so that he's facing James, one leg tucked up under himself. He takes the ice pack from James's hand and holds it to his shoulder himself.

James rolls his head to face Winn without lifting it from the back of the couch.

"Just to know she's got that kind of rage inside of her," he whispers. "It was terrifying, Winn. And then when Cat wanted us to guarantee her that Supergirl wouldn't hurt anyone, wasn't a _danger_ , and I was standing there with my shoulder hurting like hell and I couldn't, I couldn't promise her that? God, I just..."

His voice trails off.

"I know," Winn says, softly, and it's not enough, really, but it's what he has to offer. What do you say when your best friend, the girl you're in love with, who is like the Kryptonian embodiment of a ray of sunshine, changes in front of your eyes? What do you say when you've never had cause to be scared of her before and now suddenly the raw strength of her is all you can think about? There's nothing. He and James, they're just humans, pitiful, fragile, weak humans. And so often that's so cool, that she has these gifts, these powers, but not tonight. Tonight it's just a reminder of how much in the universe is outside of their control.

"It's not her fault," James says.

And Winn says, "No."

"I don't know if that makes it any better though," James says. "For me."

"Hey." Winn shuffles around till he's sandwiched in the corner of the couch, between the back and the armrest. "Come here?"

James stares at him uncomprehendingly for a beat, and then seems to understand. He slides down the couch till he's between Winn's legs, his back to Winn's chest, slouching down carefully till his head can rest on Winn's shoulder. Winn wraps his arms around James's middle and then presses the ice pack back to James's shoulder.

"I got you," Winn murmurs, kissing the side of his head. "We're gonna be okay, all of us. Kara too."

James shudders against him.

"Yeah," he says. He reaches for Winn's hand with his right one, tangles their fingers together, holds their joined hands against his chest. "I'm glad you're here, Winn."

**Author's Note:**

> Heyyy so remember how I was writing this series like, literally two years ago?? GeekyAndKillingIt found the series and asked for more like a week ago (I'm floored people are still finding and reading these tbh), and I've had a cold and nothing better to do the last few days, so I figured why not?
> 
> As it turns out, I've never even finished season 1 of Supergirl, because, idek, life, I guess? So I watched a few more episodes and pounded this out. It's largely new, although the first half of the first chapter did get written like, way back in 2016. Oops? 
> 
> Anyways, I've got a bunch of new fics in the works (they're largely all Voltron: Legendary Defender, if any of y'all are into that), but I also would really like to go back and finish up my lingering WIPs. So if you guys have ideas for where you'd like this series to go, hmu on here or [on tumblr](https://thecryoftheseagulls.tumblr.com) (but please, for the love of all that is holy, attempt to avoid spoilers because i'm still stuck in 2016-land and season 1 of Supergirl for the time being, don't @ me). 
> 
> Thanks for reading, and if you're still here from way back when I was first writing this series, thanks for sticking with me! <3


End file.
